


The Accordion

by ATwistOfLemonLyman



Series: The Gods Have Conspired [20]
Category: The West Wing
Genre: (actually it's maybe more than a dash), 1940s, Ada Lyman, Canon Jewish Character, Felix Strauss, Flashback, Future Fic, Gen, Jacob Lyman - Freeform, Jakob Strauss, Jewish Character, Josh and Donna are only in the background for this one, Lyman family, OC centric, Post-Bartlet Administration, Vignette, Wedding, a dash of angst, but can be read on its own, same goes for the Bartlets and the rest of the Senior Staff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-24
Updated: 2019-04-29
Packaged: 2020-01-31 10:46:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18589687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ATwistOfLemonLyman/pseuds/ATwistOfLemonLyman
Summary: Ada Lyman reminisces during her grandson's wedding.





	1. Prologue

  
_**Manchester, New Hampshire** _

_**June 30, 2013** _

* * *

 

  Felix had finished arranging his accordion neatly on his lap when Ada noticed him pull something out of his jacket pocket, something small and rectangular.

  “Felix!” Ada exclaimed as he tapped the small cardboard box he had in his hand and a cigarette peeked out.

  “What?” Felix asked, feigning innocence.

  “I can’t believe you!” Ada huffed. 

  “I’m not planning on lighting it, Adelaide. It’s part of the charm, it completes the look,” he explained, placing the cigarette between his lips. "I don't even have a lighter with me."

  Ada was annoyed that he was right, he looked like he belonged on some European street corner, charming women out of their change with that cigarette dangling from his lips and the old but well-preserved and intricately decorated accordion on his lap- he had no right to look so debonair at 84. 

  “Besides, I’m already dying, you should’ve yelled at me 60 years ago.”

  Her cousin predictably took their conversation in a morbid direction but Ada knew he was only teasing her and was waiting for another huff of indignation. All she gave him was a sigh and a roll of her eyes which appeared to satisfy him. 

  There was no use in reminding him that there had been yelling well over 60 years ago, she knew he remembered- he remembered everything. Her father, who had been alarmed by how much his adolescent nephew was smoking at such a young age, hadn’t made much headway with the stubborn boy but he had at least managed to get Felix to cut down drastically on how many cigarettes he went through in a day and he managed to keep the smoking out of the house, not that that had been too difficult considering how much Felix disliked being in enclosed spaces for too long and all it had taken was a single cough from Ada for him to dash out of the house to the front stoop with his cigarettes.

  While Ada thought about their post-war reunion and Felix's adjustment to his new home during that period, Felix began his gentle tugging and pushing of the bellows, the fingers on his left hand playing the bass keys that began to form the structure of the waltz before his right hand joined in with the melody. 

  At first it was difficult to look away from her cousin- to even notice the wedding reception going on around them. There had always been something so painfully entrancing about him, so beautiful and otherworldly, especially in moments like these when he exposed a part of himself that he preferred to keep hidden, when he displayed such an intensity of feeling for all to see, his eyes closing as his fingers danced across the keys, his entire body visibly keeping time. 

  The sight of him and the music, as beautiful and haunting as her cousin, took Ada back to her childhood. Took her back to Mrs. Bronstein and her gaggle of grandchildren, to the segregated weddings and the women’s balcony, to Shabbat dinners and hunts for afikoman, to matzo balls and the shock of finding carp in the bathtub; a world Ada never would have been exposed to if she’d only lived in her uncle’s world of greasepaint and spotlights, elaborate costumes and demanding producers. 

 


	2. How Do You Solve a Problem Like Young Felix?

**_New York_ **

**_Spring of 1946_ **

* * *

 

  Ada was aware that Felix had been getting into trouble at school even before his homeroom teacher, Ms. Atwood, had tracked her down and given her an envelope to give to her father.

  There’d been that altercation that had left one of the Senior boys with a black eye and had been broken up before any teachers could get to the scene. All of the people involved remained tight-lipped and not a single witness had revealed what had happened, much less why, but later that day Ada spotted Felix looking sullen, his fists jammed into his pockets with a cuff missing a button, and several boys in his grade either shooting glares at him or avoiding him entirely.

  She was sure that there was more going on than just that one fight that no one seemed to want to talk about but Felix never said anything. Every day he’d just show up by the door of Ada’s final class for the day, with a smile on his face that he reserved only for her, and he’d walk back with her to her Uncle Johnny’s place where they all lived, their conversations on the way home revolving around her entirely because Felix seemed to want it that way.

  After Ada had delivered the note to her father he had gone off to meet with Ms. Atwood on one of the afternoons he didn’t have a class to attend. It was only after this meeting that Ada found out almost the entirety of what had been going on with Felix at school.

  Felix had been skipping classes, during the classes he did manage to attend he was noticeably restless, he was getting frustrated with his English not improving as quickly as he wanted, he was regularly getting into fights with other boys- mostly boys with older brother’s who had fought or died in the European theater and became suspicious when they’d overheard Felix’s German accent. Ada’s father had told her that Ms. Atwood had said that all of Felix’s teachers agreed that he was incredibly bright but that things could not continue as they were and that Felix would need additional help if he was to succeed in school. During the meeting Jakob had found himself having to explain more about Felix’s situation. Ms. Atwood had, of course, already known that Felix was a refugee but, even if she had not already been made aware of that fact before Felix had been assigned to her homeroom, it would have been made obvious to her by his accent and the ghost of past malnourishment that still clung to his angular features.

  Yes, he had been in a camp as Ms. Atwood suspected and lost his father there, but he had eventually found himself in a partisan camp. By 12 he’d been given a gun and sentry duties, by 13 he’d already killed a man, Jakob could not provide any more details of what had happened during Felix’s time in the partisan camp since Felix never said much about it and didn’t elaborate on what little he had told Jakob.

  The only reason Jakob had been able to locate his nephew so quickly after the end of the war was because Felix had contracted typhus and had managed to end up in the care of American GIs who had been eager to fill out the necessary forms and documents for Felix in hopes of getting his name on survivors lists so that he would be found by any surviving family members, the soldiers that had taken Felix under their wing had also tried combing through the lists but there was little information Felix could tell them to aid them in their search apart from a couple of names.

   

 

> Dorothea Strauss née Blum. Relation: Mother.
> 
> Otto Strauss. Relation: Brother.
> 
> Theodore Immanuel Strauss. Relation: Grandfather.
> 
> Hannah Strauss née Lowenthal. Relation: Grandmother.
> 
> Simon Blum. Relation: Grandfather.
> 
> Heinrich Isidor Blum. Relation: Uncle.
> 
> Jakob Strauss. Relation: Uncle.
> 
> Charlotte Strauss née Weisenbach. Relation: Aunt.

 

  Felix had doubted that his grandparents Theodore, Hannah, and Simon could possibly be alive but he gave their names anyway. He had not been able to present his temporary protectors with any other useful information apart from the fact that his father’s brother, Jakob, was several years younger than his father who had been born 1897 putting Jakob somewhere in his late 30s or early 40s, and that all of his family- those eight names he’d given them- had been born in, and taken from, Berlin. In the end it had been Jakob who had found Felix after multiple inquiries to UNRRA and other refugee organizations.

  Ms. Atwood had been shocked and moved by what she learned that afternoon and had promised to provide all the help she could with Felix’s education. Jakob had left the meeting wondering what on earth could possibly done for a boy like Felix. Jakob had never been a disciplinarian, Ada had been young when she’d been sent out of Germany and he hadn't had much of a chance to do much parenting, but even so, he had always been too soft with his daughter and nephews to punish any misbehavior the way most parents deemed appropriate. What was he to do with a boy like Felix?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was meant to be much longer but the last half needed a bit of work and I was feeling desperate to publish SOMETHING so it's been split in half and there will now be 4 chapters instead of 3.
> 
> Hope you enjoyed this and if so please consider leaving a review ;)

**Author's Note:**

> The piece that Felix plays is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsSsNk52b4s though he plays it as a solo so if you'd like to see it being performed as a solo click here https://youtu.be/34PMi1Zon1w?t=5
> 
> The next chapter will be a flashback to the 1940s.


End file.
